Most people hate having mice and rats in their house. You’ll want a cheap and fast way to get rid of them, so you’ll likely go to a nearby store and grab any available trap. There are usually many options: snap traps, sticky mouse traps, glue traps, and electric mouse traps.
Sure, there are humane mouse traps that capture house mice safely, and ones that will kill mice instantly. You might kill the mouse, but what about you? Or your pets? Or your children?
These traps can potentially cause harm or be fatal to you, your pets, and your children. Learn about the dangers of mouse traps and how you can get rid of mice without them!
Are Mouse Traps Dangerous? 
Snap mouse traps are the most common traps. They’re the most effective way to capture mice when it comes to killing mice, but they can cause you injury. When you’re loading the trap, you can potentially hit the trigger, snapping your finger.
As an adult, your finger bones are a lot thicker than a mouse’s neck bones, which are about the size of a toothpick. As a result, a mouse trap might not break your finger, but it’ll hurt.
Rat traps, though, which are about 4 times larger and stronger than mouse traps and usually have serrated edges, could break your finger. If they don’t break your finger, you could still have severe bruising or pinched nerves. Carefully read the trap’s directions to learn how to properly set up a mouse trap.
Can Mouse Traps Hurt My Pet?
Depending on your pet type, most mouse traps can cause injury. Animals are curious beings; when something new is introduced into their environment, they investigate it. Most mouse traps have bait like peanut butter or cheese, foods your own pets may be interested in. This can entice the mice, but it could also give your pet an incentive to investigate.
With pets, this curiosity could lead to their fur getting stuck in the mouse’s glue trap. For long-haired pets, a haircut would be necessary, but for short-haired and hairless pets, this could mean a costly vet visit. A snap trap or glue trap could get stuck to their tail, paws, noses, tongues, or fur and could cause them pain and also result in a vet visit.
For smaller pets like a hamster, pet mouse, gerbil, or guinea pig, mouse traps can be fatal. Their small bodies can trigger the traps and could kill or trap them in the way the traps can kill or trap the mouse.
Another common “trap” that’s used for mice is poisonous pellets. These pellets prevent the mice’s blood from clotting which can cause internal bleeding. This will cause similar harm to your pets. If you decide to use pellets or poison, keep them as far away from pets as possible.
Avoid injury to your pets by keeping the traps out of reach, hidden, or call your local exterminator.
Can Mouse Traps Harm My Children?
Children, like animals, are also very curious beings. They’re likely to touch the traps you set up and can cause injury to them. Earlier, we mentioned snap mouse traps hurting you, an adult. Mice traps can hurt you while rat traps can injure you, leaving broken fingers, bruising and pinched nerves.
Now imagine a child with smaller fingers and bones. Mice traps can cause worse injury, more broken fingers, possibly a broken hand, broken toes or feet, and, like animals, they’re likely to put their face near the traps.
Mouse poison is also incredibly dangerous for children. Most come in bright colors and could look like candy to a child’s eye, but could cause serious internal harm. Call poison control immediately if your child ingests any poison.
Glue traps for mice are another harmful type of trap for a child. As previously mentioned, children will often put their faces near traps; the glue can get stuck to hair, tongues, eyelashes, and extremities. If a child gets a glue trap stuck to their skin, it can be removed with cooking oil: vegetable, canola, coconut; or any that can act as a lubricant.
Although glue traps are unlikely to cause physical damage to a child, they can certainly cause psychological damage. Stuck mice typically squeak loudly as a call for help or they’ll break off their limbs trying to escape.
This is unsettling for most children. These traps will take a while to kill the mice. You’ll want to get rid of them immediately if you catch one in the glue.
Otherwise, you’ll have to teach your children about the slow death process. Catch and release mouse traps could also be dangerous for children.
If you catch a mouse in one and your child notices, they may set the mouse free. Typically the mouse or will run away from others, but there’s a risk it could attack and bite.
How to Catch a Mouse without a Trap?
Although mice traps are not likely to be fatal to you, your pets, or your children, you still risk injury. But there’s a way to catch mice without injury, without worry, and without having to explain to your children what death looks like. Call a mouse exterminator!
Mice exterminators can assess the best way to get mice out of your home, based on the type of mouse, the possible amount of mice, and whether you have pets and/or children. You’ll never have to worry about how to set a mousetrap without injuring yourself again, call Suburban Exterminating at (631/516) 864-6900 to handle all your mouse needs: preventing mice, trapping mice, and cleaning up after the mice!
